


somebody else

by boleynqueens



Category: 16th Century CE RPF, The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 03:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11005212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boleynqueens/pseuds/boleynqueens
Summary: Except, he knows something about being lonely, too. Maybe.The kind of loneliness that seeks out any kind of end? He knows about that.





	somebody else

**Author's Note:**

> i've had insomnia and been watching a lot of 'friends' so idk this...happened, lads.
> 
> 'and they were roommates'
> 
> 'oh my god...they were /roommates/'

"Who the fuck are you?"

The girl sitting atop his countertop tilts her head to the side at this (stays strangely, calmly still: she makes no other movement in fact, makes no move to slide off, her legs remain crossed at the ankles), white spatula in hand.

"Who the fuck are _you_?" she responds in kind, pointing the utensil towards him with a flick (like a wizard, _a swish and a flick_ , something he remembers from paperbacks of the series he kept under his bed to read after lights out).

Henry squints, raises his right arm, and jangles his set of keys:

"I live here."

"Oh. Charles didn't say he had…a  roommate."

_Charles didn't say he had a roommate._

_'Roommate's' a **generous** term_ , given that _'Roommate Charles''_ idea of paying rent is buying the occasional pizza and six-pack, but it at least explains why there's a stranger sitting on his _otherwise immaculately clean_ ( _not…for…sitting_ ) kitchen counter.

 _What it doesn't explain_ :

"Why are you wearing my shirt?"

"Oh…sorry," she says, rubbing a thumb over one short sleeve, spatula still splayed jauntily in her other hand (trapped between long, ringed fingers), "I thought it was his, it was folded in the laundry basket in his room."

"No. Definitely mine. He doesn't like _The 1975_."

She shrugs, puts the spatula back into a glass jar near her thigh, the label of it facing away from him so he can't see what it is:

"Can you even name one thing that happened _in_ 1975, though?"

"Excuse me?"

"Most guys that like that band can't, so I have a theory--"

"Three of the Watergate figures were sentenced jail time, there was an assassination attempt on Gerald Ford, Iceland--"

"O _kay_! I said _one_ thing."

"Apologies."

"You're out of peanut butter," she says, turning her head till her chin is over her shoulder, one visible cheek turning red, pushing the jar away from her with one hand, "by the way."

_Great._

He doesn't say it aloud, because now she seems embarrassed (and he might have liked her more when she was confrontational-- not that he has any business to like her any way, she's his _friend's date_ ) and he feels strangely guilty ( _well, it **is** strange_ \-- he _didn't eat **her** food_ ), even responsible, for it: the dark downcast lashes, the flushed skin, the face still averted in profile.

"Fine," he says, instead, softly (though he has a right to be terse), placing his keys on the island (the dividend between them for this interaction) and walking slowly over to her, plucking the empty jar from the countertop and placing it gently in the sink.

Henry picks up the rubber gloves that were lying on the edge of it, fills the jar with dish soap and warm water, feels her black stare (insistent and magnetic, thoroughly impossible to ignore) and glances over his own shoulder to her.

"These aren't yours, too, are they?"

She's tugging at the end of the gym shorts she's wearing: a swishy, shiny blue that goes past her knees.

He snorts.

"No… _those_ are his."

He washes the jar with a sponge, rinses more intently than he's probably ever done (but he's never tried to clean while ignoring someone in this kitchen…with Charles that's a losing battle he doesn't even bother starting).

"Night shift?" she asks.

"What?"

"You came back home late, so I just--"

"No, I don't-- no."

"Hot date?"

" _Yes_."

"Really?"

"No. Studying."

His books were left at the table near their entrance, normally he'd put them back in his bedroom but he'd seen the light on in the kitchen and assumed his roommate, walked in and found a stranger perched on the counter instead (a rare occurrence-- Charles usually at least texted a warning, and it didn't happen half as often as he boasted to others). He feels a pang for them, for those brief seconds where he expected a usual scenario much easier than this one, abandoned there along with those very materials.

"For?"

"The school of hard knocks."

" _Really_?"

"No. The bar," he says, placing the jar on the dish rack and peeling his gloves off carefully.

"Well…good luck."

"It's not for four months."

"Then why are you studying so late?"

"Less than half passed it last year in this state," he answers, pressing dry hands against the front of his jeans.

 _What is she doing with her hands_ , he wonders, and checks: they're curled over the rounded granite.

 _What am I doing with mine_ … _nothing_ , so he grabs paper towels from the wooden ring near the dish rack and dries the jar as he asks:

"What's your name?"

"What's yours?"

"I asked you first," he says, throwing the wet towels away and opening the cupboard under the sink to the recycling bin when _she_ :

"Why do guys always think that _going first_ is any kind of accomplishment?"

He bangs his forehead against the top of the wood frame, on his knees.

"Was that the problem?" Henry asks, closing the cupboard door shut, "Is that why you're out here?"

 _That was disloyal_ , is his first thought, a scold and then: he _doesn't care as much as he should_ _about that, though_.

_Dangerous territory._

"No," she says, hands in her lap now, "he didn't 'go first', he didn't…we didn't 'go'."

"I see," he says, lifting himself up off the floor.

"We were going to, and I asked him where the bathroom was because the one at the bar we were at was gross, and…I came back and he was sleeping, so--"

"Oh, yeah. He pulled an all-nighter last night. Not that surprised."

"Did he?"

"It was his birthday, yeah. We were at the Staples Center, the arena the Kings play at. We had the rink to ourselves, well, ourselves and-- guests."

"Wow. Did he win a radio contest or something?"

 _No, my dad is friends with the CEO of that subsidiary_ , is what he'd usually drop at such a moment, but somehow he doesn't get the feeling she'd be impressed (not that he _wants to impress her_ ), so:

"Yeah, something like that. What's your name?"

The girl shrugs, evasive still:

"It doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't matter, why won't you--"

"I don't think he'll remember it, so…you probably don't need to."

"O.. _kay_. Do you, like…need an Uber, or--"

"No, I don't really-- want to go home in what I was wearing from before. At night."

"Oh, well I'd--"

"Bandage dress."

"Right, sure, I'd-- normally offer a ride otherwise, honestly, but my car's actually in the shop, so…I could wait with you for one, if you--"

"No, I can just get one in the morning, but thanks. He was just-- snoring, but I can go back if you're going to be studying out here or-- it's your apartment."

"I won't subject you to that," he says, laughing, "c'mon, follow me."

* * *

Henry's books are atop his desk in his room now, in their place, so he feels much better than before. That, a hot shower and a change into sweatpants and a concert tee shirt _not_ occupied by his best friend's almost-one-night-stand did wonders for his ease.

 _(Almost) One Night Stand_ (if she wanted him to think of her as a different name, she should've given him hers when he asked-- _twice_ ) sits on the opposite end of the couch, a blanket his mother knitted covering her legs, remote control on her armrest.

She's chosen _Friends_ reruns. It's a decent choice, he thinks: there's something specifically calming about laugh tracks from the '90s, and there's not much better on this late at night on cable.

She mutes the commercials, which makes them surreal: wide-eyed cats demanding food from their owners with no dialogue, no soundtrack, fields of bright green grass for allergies, silent car crashes…

"I don't normally do this," she says.

"Watch _Friends_?"

"No, I mean-- no, I don't usually do that either, but…"

He's not filling her sentence in for her, not rescuing it, not feeling particularly generous: _this isn't the land of the fae, you don't give up ownership of your soul by telling someone your name._

"Hook up with people I've just met. I don't usually do that."

"Sounds like you didn't, so…"

"I would've, though. I just don't normally."

"So? What do I care what you do? I don't even know you."

"I don't know."

 The episode's back on, but he doesn't say anything about it. Watches the mouths move soundlessly onscreen, as if underwater, thinks _: I haven't watched this show in years, how do I still know all their names?_  Watches her, with her chin tilted down, hair a dark sleek cape around her shoulders, rubbing the top of her cheekbone with two fingers and thinks _: maybe she's lonely_.  

_Maybe lonely people like to keep their names to themselves._

She startles, though, finally registering the switch from commercial stream to show, unmutes it and leans back in her seat.

* * *

He's leaning back himself, the theme song of another episode playing in the background, and has just begun to close his eyes when:

"It's Anne."

* * *

He doesn't open his eyes until the commercials are over (easy to tell when there's silence during), and keeps his gaze on the screen as he says:

"Henry. Nice to meet you."

* * *

Anne falls asleep at two, crookedly, her upper body and head the edge of a slanted card against the back of the couch.

He grabs an extra pillow from the closet in the hall, plus an extra blanket, and eases her till she's lying down with the former under her head, the latter over her feet.

* * *

He can't sleep in his own bed for two hours.

Tosses, turns.

Types out a text to his mom:

 

> _I met a_
> 
>  

Erases it.

_No, you didn't: he did._

Types out a message to Charles:

 

> _You fucking asshole. You f u c k i n g_
> 
>  

Erases.

* * *

_You literally know nothing about her. Not a goddamn -- don't be like this._

Except, he knows something about being lonely, too. Maybe.

The kind of loneliness that seeks out any kind of end? He knows about that.

* * *

 _Listen:_ _it's not like he's a hermit, or anything._

He has a lot of friends. He has people that love him. He knows he doesn't have a right to feel lonely; not really. Not with parents that love him (albeit one with something of a stranglehold-- _but he **means** well_, was the oft-repeated line, as if _meaning_ meant more than _action_ , as if _intent_ and _purpose_ mattered more than their _actual result_ ), not with enough money to keep him safe for several lifetimes, not with _his_ GPA at a prestigious law school, not with older siblings to guide and younger ones to lead, all with so much love, an all-surrounding love…

Yet, still; there it sits.

_Loneliness._

The dirtiest word in the English language; the one you're never, ever supposed to say.

Not if you're like Henry, anyway.

* * *

"Rough night?" Henry asks.

Charles sits on a bar stool, at the island, shirtless, blue eyes bleary and caked with sleep: he flashes the peace sign, and a morbidly small smile.

 _Lie,_ he thinks, meanly, peering over the rim of his coffee cup as he drinks _, lie, lie, lie, lie and I'll **know** you're lying, lie lie lie lie---_

" _Fuck_ no? My Tinder match was hot, she actually looked _better_ than her picture, but I fucking…fell _asleep_ ," he groans, "I woke up and she was-- _whoosh_!"

Charles demonstrates the last bit, his hand a flying bird, then pulls it down to drum against the counter as he speaks:

" _But_ \-- she left her Facebook profile on my phone. Which is creepy, because…I don't know how she knew my passcode, but it's whatever, she's hot enough that I don't really care--"

"Your passcode is literally all zeroes."

"But how would she _know_ \--"

"You tell everyone after…two drinks. You say it's because it's Jesus' birthday, even though that is quite literally not--"

"It's the year _Zero_ \--"

"--even a little bit true--"

"--of our lord and savior Jesus Christ, in the hour zero, military time."

"It's really… _okay_. It's--"

"It's also so I can remember it, _yes_ ," Charles drawls, rubbing the stubble on his face with two hands, "excuse me for _living_."

* * *

The shower runs, a soothing and distant noise, as he checks the couch: no blankets (she must have put them back in the closet, and he'll have to fix that, later) or pillows, but his shirt and Charles' shorts are folded on one of the cushions.

He picks them up and walks over to the laundry machine, drops the gym shorts in the tub, is about to drop the _1975_ shirt and cannot, because: the scent of jasmine, nectarines, crisp and sweet.

He lifts the cotton to his face and inhales ( _it's not weird, it's **your** shirt_).

_It **is** weird. _

_You should stop._

_Like, really, you should-- count of ten--_

"What are you doing?"

He jumps, tosses the shirt in like it burns him, like it's a basketball he has to slam-dunk to win, slams the lid, the force of it reverberates:

"I didn't know if it was clean-- what are _you_ doing-- stop stealing my shirts!"

_Nailed it._

"O _kay_ …are there any more clean towels in here, my hair's wet."

"Check the dryer."

He _knows_ they're not in the dryer; he _never_ leaves anything in the dryer once it's finished drying; it's just something to say.

Charles shuts the dryer back closed, sighing:

"Guess I'll just _run_ it dry."


End file.
